Gerald Fredrick Töben was brought before the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for violating section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act by denying the holocaust. The HREOC found against him, but he ignored them, so they escalated the matter to the federal court, who issued a court order enforcing the HREOC findings under section 18c. Toben ignored that also and continued denying the holocaust on his website. He was eventually jailed for his opinion.

Supporters of 18c insist it is not a threat to freedom of speech because of the exemptions under section 18d. However these exemptions did not protect Toben, and would be unlikely to protect others whose views are unpopular. Supporters of 18c try various lies to distance 18c from Toben's jailing, from the subtle to the idiotic. Even I am surprised by how many people are doing this. This is as good a reason as any to defend freedom of speech. If not, you leave yourself at the mercy of this sort of idiocy. Anyway, here they are.

John Smith had a rather stupid suggestion that we respond by trying to get rid of contempt of court legislation rather than 18c (again, see the opening post for quotes)

simply highlighting how stupid your idea is. You want to ban 18c because it resulted in someone going to jail who you believe shouldn't have. Continue that logic through to other laws and you'll see how stupid that train of thought is.

Sure. Has anyone suggested an alternative means of arriving at damages?

Gandalf, do you agree that Toben was jailed for denying the holocaust, or do you take the learned Aussie's view that he was jailed for Contempt of Court by defying a Court Order not refraining from denying the holocaust (and anything else is a blatant lie of the most scurrilous kind)

I've corrected the question so that I am not verballed, and to make it accurate in terms of what I said, and not what FD wishes I had said.

Can you clarify that when you accused me of lying about whether the man was jailed for denying the holocaust (without explanation) you merely meant that he was jailed for refusing to cease denying the holocaust?

How many times must I do that for you freediver? I have agreed with that.

Pausing there, it follows from the above that there is no room for dispute that Dr Toben has spent time in prison in Australia for criminal contempt constituted by the publication of material found to have racially vilified the Jewish people and which conveyed imputations including that there was serious doubt that the Holocaust occurred.

After agreeing with all this, do you still insist it is a "blatant lie of the most scurrilous kind" to suggest he was jailed for denying the holocaust?

This just supports what I said in the opening post of my own thread.It seems people are more concerned with their right to be racists and bigots than they are about ensuring the Government is held to account.

The draconian "special intelligence operation" legislation would never get 5 posts running at once

Are you hoping that if you keep starting theads on this, the facts will eventually change to suit your argument?

This is a typical FD quote bomb. He carefully selects posts, isolates them out of context and then posts them as a collage, purporting to be integral and in context, in one of these dumbarse 'bombs.' Really stupid and so obviously disingenuous.